Bye-Bye, Week 2!

Okay. . . week 2 is officially toast. Still dealing with post-run cramping and soreness in the calves and tenderness in the medial side of the lower leg. Stretching, massage, and a small hit of protein seems to help, but next week ought to REALLY be fun. Much more. . . optimistic(?) workout schedule. So far, I've only done 1 1/2 min at a time, always with a bit more for recovery. Next week, I amp it up to alternating bouts of 1 1/2 min and 3 min, with even time after each for recovery. I noticed my prescribed workout is 2 min shorter, too. Might go with that, might not. Depends on how I feel overall, lol. It's been kind of a "depressed" day, so I'm proud of myself for sucking it up and getting it done, really. I've made good food choices (so far; the husband's in town, so meatloaf, potatoes-n-gravy, and corn for dinner, lol), and I'm trying to get my water down. I keep forgetting it. Gonna have to try FlyLady's method for keeping up with how many I've had. Of course, that doesn't work out so well when the kids keep dropping by the oasis for a drink. :-) Little squirrels! I bought them their own bottles, but they still like Mommy's best. Reminds me of Gigi (German foreign exchange student who lived with our family when I was in school). She'd always beg my best friend for "just one bite" from her cup-o-noodles. Toni still remembers her as "the only person I ever met who could fit a whole cup-o-noodles on one fork!" We'd offer to make her her own cup, but, "It tastes better when you make it for you!" :-D She was fantastic.

Amazing Day

It had nothing to do with running, of course, but it was pretty sweet anyway. Literally, in some points. I have a weakness for hot Krispy Kremes. And the light was on. I make no excuses, as I stuff my mouth with warm clouds of happiness. I know I will have to pay for it, and find some way to regain the balance. But some things are worth it. Mmmm. We took Preston and Tristan to St. Louis today, to visit the Butterfly House and the Magic House (and the Bob the Builder exhibit therein, lol). The Butterfly House was kind of a bust. Beautiful as always, but come to find out, my 3 y/o was terrified of the butterflies! Poor baby! Then, he retaliated by trying to terrify ME! He disappeared from the playground while we were having lunch and giving the kids a play break. Finally found him all the way back over at the B'fly House! Then, on to Cold Stone Creamery (yeah, I was BAD today, lol), a short trip to lostville, and then the Magic House. It was the first time my mother has been since I was a child. I told her it was bigger. No, really, BIGGER. Some things can't really be absorbed until you see them for yourself. :) She was in awe. We spent probably 4 hours there, and I don't think the kids saw 1/4 of all there was to see and do. But, they had a fantastic time, and that, after all, is what we went for. So. . . WIN!!! Tristan enjoyed the Bob the Builder exhibit. Preston was delighted with it. :) They loved the sand pit and the water table, the bubble room and the musical stuff. We must do this again.

Ya Learn Something New Every Day

Well, maybe not EVERY day, but I think I picked up something important yesterday. It was a busy day, so I didn't do my blog right away, but I DID do my run, c25k w2d2. And WOW did my legs HURT!!!! I had to lean on the wall to gimp off the treadmill; I was afraid I'd fall otherwise. My calves were that badly cramped up. I stretched, I massaged, I stretched some more. Nothing but rebound cramps. ~sigh~ Then, my mother suggested a potassium deficiency. Not something I've ever dealt with, but it made a certain amount of sense. Perhaps I was getting enough for my everyday, fairly sedate lifestyle, but not enough to support the added demands of running? So, I fixed myself a snack. Greek yogurt, with honey, pecans, and dried cranberries. (I recommend it, btw. Yummy.) And what do you know? I don't think I was done eating before I began to feel MUCH better. So, now I'm going to make it a point to include enough potassium in my diet. I certainly don't want a repeat of yesterday's fiasco. On another point, I've also decided no more shorts for running, unless they happen to be knee-length and tight. Anything short enough (or that will ride up to be short enough) to leave my thighs bare impairs my form, b/c my thighs are too fat. They rub, and when it's skin-to-skin, there's not enough freedom of movement for good running form. So, for now, it's capris, b/c I don't own any bike shorts yet. Haven't in years. I consider myself too fat to wear something that tight in public. But, this isn't public, and running clothes are not a fashion statement anyway. So, I may have to buy a pair. :-) Eventually. Saw on Facebook today that a good friend of mine is thinking of taking up c25k. More power to her, I say. Far too many of us sit back and say, "I could never do that." And we make all sorts of excuses. I know; I've spent years doing it myself. But the fact of it is, you never know WHAT you can do until you TRY. And when you do what's possible today, more will be possible tomorrow (or, in this case, next week). It's all a question of doing just a little more at a time, and being kind to yourself. After all, you haven't done this before, and your body is likely to hate you for it at first. There's a reason Paul spoke of the spirit being willing, but the flesh being weak. So, we force the flesh, little by little, to become stronger. It's amazing to me how the flesh desires that which is self-destructive. Think about it. The spirit wants to run (or lift weights, ride a bike, do yoga); the body wants to sit on the couch. The spirit wants a healthful diet; the flesh demands burgers, fries, and Snickers ice cream. And in the end, if we give in to the body, is the spirit destroyed? No; the body is. One would think the flesh would have a keener sense of self-preservation! :-)

Out With the Old; In With the New

Shoes, that is. :) My new running shoes arrived today, and although I tried them on and took them on a brief test flight, I am anxious for tomorrow, when I can try them out in a "real" workout. But, for today, my calves are still tight and sore, so I'm respecting my scheduled rest day. Perhaps I'm respecting it a tad too much, as my eating plan is falling apart. I had a friend over this morning, and his idea of breakfast is fried eggs and bacon. Luckily, I was able to shove most of my share off on the baby who, I tell myself, needs the fat for brain development, lol. Half a cup of oatmeal with blackberry fruit spread rounded off my breakfast. But. . . . I have fallen victim to a box of "new" snack cakes and homemade cookies gifted to me by a neighbor and very dear friend. She brought them for the children, who are NOT doing their part! Meanwhile, they have been sitting beside my computer and gradually disappearing. At any rate, I'm off to give my aunt a lift into town for garden supplies, and probably to round my lousy food day off with something quick (in other words, probably not good for me) for dinner. See you all tomorrow!

Beginning Week 2

I hate this computer some days. I was in the middle of a good post here, and then suddenly, it highlighted all my text, and of course, we all know what happened. With the next keystroke, it was all gone. And I cannot figure out a way to get it back. I can't even figure out why that sort of thing keeps happening! Grrr! And now, of course, the baby isn't going to allow me enough peace to try and get it back. Suffice it to say, w2d1 completed, with just a little more difficulty than week 1. Started the run with tight hamstrings, courtesy of too many hours in heels at Grandma Mary's funeral visitation yesterday, ended with (of course) cramped-up calves. I wonder how long that's going to last? Had a good chat this evening with my TOPS pal, Marca. We agreed that women are pretty much nuts. Doesn't matter how hard we work or how much we accomplish with our lives, if we're overweight, we consider ourselves failures. (I am fat and ugly, so I must be lazy and undisciplined, and therefore, I am worthless.) How ridiculous! Do we not believe that God sees the heart of man, and values us for far more than a number on a scale? We will allow that number on the scale to drive us, to the point that we'll do most anything to lower it, and often do as much damage to our health as simply being overweight does. When if we would allow a desire for a healthier lifestyle to drive us, such as fueling our bodies with good food and working out to increase our strength and abilities, the weight loss would follow, and we'd feel far better for it. Too often we're so desperate for the number to go down that instead of switching from fueling our bodies with bad food to good food, we switch from bad food to nearly NO food! Well, you don't expect your car to do better on no gas than bad gas, do you? Of course not! Our chapter seems to be in a bit of a rut, and we're thinking spring might be the perfect time to see if we can shake things up, work on a whole new attitude. Something to think on, anyway. I imagine we'll talk more on the subject. We're glad to be of a similar mindset, as it's hard enough to get rid of "stinkin thinkin" especially when it's a habit taught to us literally by all of society over the course of our entire lives. Perhaps the help of a friend will make it easier to remember what the goal is and what's REALLY important, here. Honoring the gift of our physical being by tending to it well, not fitting it into a certain size dress. And how much we are worth as wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends. How hard we work, and how much we DO get right, even on the days it seems most everything goes wrong. Marca is an amazing woman. She works hard every day to take care of her family and devotes considerable time and energy to volunteer work for causes she believes in. And all this in the face of her own physical challenges. I'm glad to know her and proud to call her my friend. Yet, if she's not careful, she will look at the number on the scale, or the one sewn into her jeans, and mentally toss all that aside, telling herself she's a failure and she just can't stick to anything, so why even try? Do you know someone who might be in the same boat? Tell her today--and tomorrow, and the next day--that you love her and think she's amazing! Maybe if we hear it often enough, we'll begin to believe.

Reflection

Today seems to be a day for thought and reflection. Perfect, really, for a day I'd decided on for a yoga routine. :) I was considering earlier the circumstances that may have led to my lifelong hatred of running. I was never a terribly physical person. Tag, hide-and-go-seek, and the like were among my least-favored games. Even as a child, I prefered a leisurely walk through the woods, or an afternoon spent curled up with a compelling story. I also had (and still do) a fondness for food. These in combination have led to me spending my life, as far back as I can remember, overweight and out of shape. Being teased for being fat and slow, and not particularly good at physical games did nothing to encourage me to put down my books and play. And then came the culmination. 7th grade PE. Every morning of 7th grade, first period, we were to run 20-some-odd laps (what I'm told is about 1 mile). No easing into it, no walk breaks for those of us less-fit suckers. No rest days (unless you count weekends when we didn't have school). And all of this with a gym teacher who ran his jr. high PE classes as if he were still in Marine boot camp. Which meant those of us who were slow and struggling didn't get encouragement shouted at us, but rather insults! No wonder I learned to despise running, and to believe it was something I simply wasn't made to do. So, I spent the next 15 years or so making all the standard jokes about it (such as, if you see me running, you'd better keep up) and believing only crazy people could possibly ENJOY such torture! Then, I stumbled across dailymile.com. I registered as a walker at first, but I couldn't help being drawn in by the runners, and particularly intrigued by something they called C25K, short for Couch to 5K, a program designed to take the American couch potato, and get him/her running a distance of 5K, or 3.1 miles, in about 9 weeks. The program looked fairly simple: short bursts of running interspersed with walking a while to catch one's breath, with each week bringing the run time up and the walk time down. Now THIS looked like something I could do! The program (and every runner I've met) advocates rest days between running workouts, to allow the muscle tissue to rest and revitalize. Without rest days, I've learned, the body simply cannot get stronger, no matter how hard you work. Could this be why, in 9 months of running a mile every morning, it never got easier? (Ya think?) And then, there was the encouragement! Here, instead of being insulted for being slow, and unable to complete the distance without walking, there are cheers, pats on the back, and the reassurance that you will get stronger, and it will get easier. It doesn't matter what level you're at. The guy training for his tenth marathon will give you a thumbs-up for completing the first week of training, or for the first time you ran a half-mile without stopping. He'll treat your 5K like a major event, encourage you beforehand, wait anxiously afterward to hear how it went. He can whip out a 5K in under 20 minutes without breathing hard, but for you, it's a milestone, and he respects that, because he remembers when it was his milestone. There's also the pervasive attitude that slow mileage is better than no mileage, and that the victory isn't in acheiving a certain pace or distance for the day, but rather in getting your ass off the couch, lacing up your sneakers, and heading out the door. Thank you, my friends. I have never met any of you face-to-face, but you have made me believe in the impossible, and that is an incredible gift.

Farewell to Week 1

Week 1 of C25K is officially in the history books. Today's pace was the best of the week, and I've discovered something important regarding running mechanics. If you move more from the hip, less from the knee, it's not so painful on the calf muscles! Go me! Today's workout actually felt really good (aside from the fact that my calves are killing me), and I'm looking forward to moving on to Week 2 on Monday. But for tomorrow, yoga, no excuses. And for Sunday, a day of total rest. Then, my body should be ready to attack the more challenging runs of Week 2. :) I can feel a definite difference in my body already. Stronger, slimmer, more toned. Weighed in last night at TOPS with a loss of 2.5 pounds for the week, so I must be doing something right, lol! And with all this exercise, I KNOW anything coming off is not muscle!